Pioneering Women

They ignored the status quo and rewrote the rule book on their own terms. Meet the trailblazers who will make you just that little bit ballsier in your own life and inspire you to enter this year's Red's Hot Women Awards.

Sarah Storey OBE

34, Paralympian

‘Everybody’s challenges are personal. It doesn’t matter if it’s a maths problem, or a technical aspect of your race-starts because you’re a bit lopsided like me.’ So says the supremely matter-of-fact Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey. There’s no difference, in her eyes, between struggling with algebra, and being born with a deformed left hand. Both are just challenges to be overcome and, ‘I’ve enjoyed finding solutions’.

Storey’s sporting CV is remarkable. She is the first athlete in the world to win gold in both disability and able-bodied international competitions; the holder of seven Paralympic gold medals, 18 World Championship titles and seven World Cup titles (two in able-bodied competition). Oh, and did we mention she only swapped to cycling from swimming in 2005? As for terms like ‘able-bodied’ and ‘Paralympian’? ‘They’re just adjectives,’ says Storey. ‘What frustrates me is when people refer to Paralympians as “brave”. It’s just sport. Everyone’s competing to be the best.’

For Storey, that competition included the hope that she’d be the first athlete to compete in both an Olympics and a Paralympics, at London 2012. She may have been dropped from the women’s team pursuit squad, but she’s not giving up. ‘I’m still one of only five who’s ridden fast enough,’ she says. ‘The odds have reduced, but I’m still eligible.’

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Camila Batmanghelidjh: Red Hot Women Awards

The children's advocate

Camila Batmanghelidjh

49, founder, Kids Company

She may be a smiling figure in vivid jewel-coloured clothes, but Camila Batmanghelidjh’s mission is to deliver a far-from-rosy message. ‘We’ve got 1.5 million children being significantly harmed in this country, and we only make funding available for 86,500,’ she says. ‘If that isn’t a crime of civil society, I don’t know what is.’

Batmanghelidjh’s is a loud and persistent voice for those children, but it’s a voice laced with charm. ‘I try to do it with Persian style,’ says the Iranian-born campaigner, who has the ear of prime ministers and other key influencers. ‘Deliver the lethal bullet with a smile.’

That smile ensures Batmanghelidjh’s voice is heard. It needs to be. With her charity, Kids Company, she works with damaged and disturbed children – often so extreme in their antisocial behaviours, that the rest of us have given up on them. ‘Society seeks basic fairy tales in which there are good people and bad people,’ she says. ‘These children were never chosen to be loved by anyone. So they believe themselves to be bad people and take that badness to the extreme.’

Batmanghelidjh’s role is to show them an alternative path. But she also shows us a new approach. ‘The lethal weapon against antisocial behaviour is love,’ she says. ‘In private, people know it’s love that motivates them, but when it comes to disturbed children, suddenly we negate the value of love in their recovery. It’s easier to think the kids are bad, lock them up, and we get to be the goodies. Children who’ve been harmed develop an immunity to being controlled through fear, but they’re thirsty for love. Never underestimate it.’

Doreen Lawrence OBE

59, founder, The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust

‘We didn’t set out to achieve any of this,’ says Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen. ‘All we wanted was justice for Stephen. When you’re going through the grief of seeing one of your children killed, you can’t think further than the perpetrators. You want to make sure they end up behind bars.’

That seemingly simple aim took Lawrence and her now ex-husband, Neville, over 18 years to achieve. Along the way, they changed the British legal system and inspired a nation with their vision of a community-based legacy for their son.

In January this year, two men were jailed for Stephen’s 1993 murder. It was after the original acquittal of five suspects, in 1996, that the Lawrences started their campaign against racist attitudes within the Metropolitan Police. ‘They had this stereotypical image of black people and how they behave,’ she says. ‘Stephen deserved more than they gave him.’

A public inquiry that found the Metropolitan Police to be ‘institutionally racist’, and instigating the abolition of double jeopardy (that resulted in the sentencing of two of the original five suspects), are, on their own, immense achievements. But it’s in The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, established in 1998, that Lawrence’s most profound impact is felt. ‘I wanted others to have the opportunities Stephen didn’t have,’ she says of the charity, which provides bursaries to architecture students (Stephen’s dream) and works on community projects.

The recently launched 18:18 Access and Opportunity Fund (to mark 18 years since Stephen died, aged 18), broadens the charity’s goals to support wider learning programmes. ‘My children always had me, but for some young people, there are restrictions,’ says Lawrence. ‘I wanted to make sure they were given the opportunity.’

To donate to the 18:18 Access and Opportunity Fund, go to stephenlawrence.org.uk

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Paulina Bozek: Red Hot Women Awards

The creative geek

Paulina Bozek

35, CEO and co-founder, Inensu

‘I’m not a gamer,’ says Paulina Bozek categorically.

It’s an unexpected statement from someone who’s at the forefront of creating online games, and has been awarded a Bafta for her success. It’s not just Bozek’s lack of teenage years spent fighting online wars that makes her stand out. Her background is in social psychology and media, which gives her an unusual perspective on gaming. ‘I’m interested in deconstructing things and looking at why they’re popular. I want to make games for non-gamers, like me,’ she says. ‘I find games exciting because they constantly reinvent themselves.’

Bozek struck gaming gold with SingStar, the music game she developed from concept to a $500 million franchise for Sony Computer Entertainment. ‘It was pioneering, because the audience was 60% female,’ says Bozek. ‘When I first started, the industry was very much toys for boys, but SingStar was for everyone.’ She has carried that vision of mass-entertainment appeal into her start-up company, Inensu. ‘We blend games and entertainment,’ she says.

‘We don’t want to be cutting-edge – being popular is the most important thing.’ The company’s first two releases, Closet Swap (encouraging clothes swapping) and SuperFan (a music-based game), are both aimed at a wider audience.

‘We don’t have a rigid idea of what makes a game,’ says Bozek. ‘We’re pretty loose. We apply our game thinking to areas that are not typical games industries.’

Bozek is a self-confessed ‘superuser’ of all things digital. Just ask Google. ‘It has this thing where you click on it and it tells you who Google thinks you are,’ she laughs. ‘I came up as an 18 to 24-year-old boy who likes hip-hop and games!’

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Yvette Cooper: Red Hot Women Awards

The Westminister leader

Yvette Cooper

42, Shadow Home Secretary

Is she or isn’t she poised to become the first female leader of the Labour Party? That’s the question hanging over Yvette Cooper. The Shadow Home Secretary, and Minister for Women and Equalities, is used to speculation, since it was mooted her husband, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, was prepared to park his own leadership ambitions were she to run for it.

‘I want to be the next Home Secretary,’ Cooper says firmly. ‘I want to be able to do stuff on stalking and antisocial behaviour. That’s my priority.’ She’s referring to her work with equality campaigner, Vera Baird QC. ‘We’re pressing for a new law on stalking to make it a criminal offence in its own right.’

This is Cooper’s turf, and why she’s so impressive as a senior woman at Westminster. She’s not showy, preferring to keep her head down and make her mark in other ways. She was the first government minister to take maternity leave, back in 2001.

‘It hadn’t been done before,’ she says. ‘Some people were supportive, but some civil servants were really not helpful.’ She’s also refreshingly open about the challenges of working motherhood. ‘There’s a tendency to think women shouldn’t admit to family pressures. But I think it’s feminist to say you’ve got to balance work and family in the right way. The only reason I can do all this is because of the help my mum gives us. Grandmas are often underrated.’ Grannies – and other women at Westminster. ‘Every generation, we’re following the work that other women, like Harriet Harman, have done.’

Whether or not Cooper will set the precedent of a female Labour leader for the next generation remains to be seen. As for the interest in the Cooper/Balls household’s power schemes? ‘There’s a lot of nonsense around; you can’t take it seriously,’ she says. Frankly, she’s got more important things on her mind.

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